August 9 - Drifting

August 9th, 2017 - Thoughts for your Week

Scripture: 2 Peter 1: 5-9

“For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind,forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.”

Drifting

“…let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”

Hebrews 12:1-2

The rest and relaxation of summer can be a wonderful thing, but it can set you to drifting at the same time. It’s easy to get lulled into a sense of idleness or laziness, especially in our walk with God. Something as simple as sleeping in can steal away that early golden hour of quiet with the Lord, and push you straight into the busyness of the day, where it can be harder to find time. That happened to me this summer.

I love that early rising time with God that I have during the school year. It gives me the fuel I need to get through my day in a much better state of mind; with my eyes on Him. But when summer hits and the late nights come, the morning time gets later and later until there’s no time at all. And then I suffer.

D.A. Carson writes; “People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.” (For the Love of God)

There is absolutely no liberation in drifting, although Satan would have us believe so. As much as a nice sleep in is lovely, pushing myself out of bed at an earlier hour so I get quiet time is so much lovelier. The more I drift in the mornings, the worse my state of mind becomes. The less faith I have. The more struggle I experience. It’s not worth it. I’m not saying never sleep in again! I’m just saying, there is a definite need to stay alert to the things that cause us to drift. We each know what they are for ourselves and they are often subtle. But they lead us down a road that we don’t want to go. And the further we go, the further we go.

Maybe your drift is keeping busy; perhaps a busy work schedule or ministry. Chris Russell states; “One of Satan’s greatest weapons against our generation seems to be his ability to make people busier than ever before. We so often sacrifice the best things in life by spending time doing things that are just “pretty good.”

Maybe you’re drifting through some discouragement right now, struggling through a time of trial. It can cause fatigue and isolation, and a desire to slowly give in to sinful habits that don’t bring nourishment to your soul.

If you are set adrift, know that it is you. He is not moving away from you, you are drifting away from Him. He never changes; we do. He’s always there; we move away. James 4:8 says; “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”

Whatever it is that causes you to drift, it will never be as fulfilling as your time spent with Jesus. Know your limits – you know what you need, and press onward towards the prize.

“The marker of those who understand the gospel is that, when they stumble and fall, they run towards God and not away.”

Matt Chandler